LGBTQ+ Rights and America

the place was less than a mile away and she almost never leaves her room... or her phone... she needed the exercise

though when it comes to the "cis" term... for some reason being called it just doesn't sit right with me, partly because it feels unnecessary, the word "normal" means the typical, the standard, the expected, and, based on numbers alone, the expected state is for someone to associate themselves with their birth gender

advancing the front into TV Tropes

People can have an idea about a lot of that without being trans. Or visibly different. It's called "being certifiably different enough to be weird without it being gender related".

You don't need gender disphoria to understand dislocation. Schizophrenia is usually really good at teaching somebody about being disjointed in body and mind and getting discriminated over it, for example.

Or, in my case: chronic fatigue syndrome (ME) — brain fog doesn't mess about.

Dividing people up in broad gender-orientation packages isn't the only way to understand being buggered by society thanks to labels you got born with loaded dice to get. :/

You need to trade in your Big Brother card for a Grumpy Older Sib one, mate. And, don't get me started on "normal". A lot fewer people count as that than you'd think.

edited 4th May '16 7:31:45 PM by Euodiachloris

exactly! it's the labels! nobody likes being labelled something against their will, so why the hell do we force it on people?

advancing the front into TV Tropes

Cognitive laziness. Looking at someone and saying, "They're one of those people", and then treating all of "those people" the same.

Cisgender exists as a term because if someone who isn't trans is "normal", then that means trans people are weird or abnormal, which we're not.

And, what about me? Asexual: normal or not? CFS = abnormal?

If only you are differently normal thanks to having a recognised difference-akin-to-being-blond, that makes me abnormal. Which means it's OK to not fund research into my issues or try understanding my perspective.

The problem with labels... they're a two-way street.

I'm normal. People are. Difference... is normal. But, fighting so hard to be seen as normal all too often shuts down the empathy for those with other differences, too. :/

"You can't understand my problem!" Is a powerful cry to arms. But, it's not necessarily as correct as often as any of us would like to think it is.

edited 4th May '16 7:50:23 PM by Euodiachloris

I never said that only trans people are differently normal, so I don't know where you're getting that.

I'm saying that the term cisgender exists, and is used, to describe people who are not trans. Just like how allosexual describes people who are not asexual. Just like how straight describes people who aren't gay or bi.

And in response to the idea that a cisgender person can understand what it's like to be trans: Do white men ever have to fear being lynched for sleeping with a white woman? Do straight women ever get told they need to be "raped straight"? Are Christians told they should be burned or shoved in gas chambers?

No. And a cis person doesn't know the fear of being killed when their partner sees what they've got in their pants.

edited 4th May '16 7:57:48 PM by smokeycut

I don't quite understand the "not liking labels" opinion. People are labeled and grouped with other people all the time to make a certain demographic clear. A Democrat is a label. A doctor is a label. An Asian is a label. A sociology major is also a label. Just because you're labeled doesn't mean you are being treated as an abnormal.

edited 4th May '16 7:57:32 PM by flameboy21th

Non Indicative Username

Flameboy,

I'd argue that the labels based on choice are generally positive. Doctor is a deserved label, for example, along with thief, writer or basketball player. People generally don't get huffy about these labels.

Labels based on the accidents of birth, though, are irritating because they explicitly have nothing to do with human agency. Claiming to understand somebody because you know they are white, female and short, for example, is effectively a way of saying "you are merely the consequence of a series of accidents."

Most people don't like that.

Great men are almost never good men, they say. One wonders what philosopher of the good would value the impotence of his disciples.

Some people don't like labels because they find it restricting and don't like being judged based on what they are rather than who they are. This guy explains it pretty well.

Personally, I think that labels based on things that can't be helped, like gender and the like are not bad things per se, but definitely can lead to generalizations and judgements which definitely do not hold true for the entire group.

So labels are not necessarily a bad thing, but you should also be careful when using them.

what do you mean I didn't win, I ate more wet t-shirts than anyone else

When you get shoved in the "lower tier, psychosocial disability" box which means you visit Atos every two years and get you benefits suspended every damn time while you go to tribunal because they really don't give a toss about your condition, you suddenly realise why what labels you get can be rather important, as well as unhelpful. -_-

Labels aren't just about demographics, even though they should be. I don't feel abnormal, but apparently, I'm worse than weird. I'm so very obviously attempting to defraud honest, normal, hardworking taxpayers with my bogus diagnosis of convenience!

Never mind I've been to tribunal over this a lot more than twice, costing God knows how much to the system each time. <_<

Because "psychosocial" = "mild" = "not really disabled" = "should be working". Despite the evidence I can't work in a standard working environment without a lot of support nobody wants to fund, as changing the normal working environment is unthinkable.

Just as some people still struggle with the fact that sexuality comes in flavours and that that's normal.

edited 4th May '16 8:17:28 PM by Euodiachloris

This will require more explanation from someone who actually experienced the problem, because as far as I can picture it, if Bob's first introduction to transness is the sight of Alice's genitals, then someone has been doing something wrong (such as, say, jumping into bed immediately without any kind of discussion, etc.) I was under the impression the "surprise penis" was an horror story transphobic people tell each other, with no basis on real life.

For all the discussion of "why should someone's sex matter?", I think we can agree that in a sexual context, it does.

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

Maybe not literally 'sees', but more of, say, a transman not using the urinals and being suspected because of that. Or a transwoman having to explain (or gives excuses) to a straight man why intercourse isn't possible.

edited 5th May '16 2:00:03 AM by hellomoto

I assume you mean pre-op, because post-op, intercourse should be possible (though children would still be out of the question). Anyway, I think that if you don't trust someone enough to tell them you're trans, it's not a good idea to have sex with them.

In China they get buried alive though, the world is bigger then just the US, I get that we're in the US thread but we seem to have gotten very general.

I guess I've always found to "do X experience X? NO!" Thing weird, what with me being a cis, het, white, Christian, male who has: had people question my gender and assert that they knew it better then me, had people repeatedly ask if I was sure about my sexuality, been afraid of being shamed and abused for admitting my religious religious beliefs, had friends go "text me once you're home so I know you got back safe".

I've had people give me shit for using the 'wrong' bathroom in the past, it was many years ago but I remember it.

edited 5th May '16 3:07:25 AM by Silasw

"And the Bunny nails it!" ~ Gabrael "If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we." ~ Cyran

Which is why bathroom policing is idiocy and needs to end. The people in charge of it clearly don't know what they're doing.

I learned the difference between Cis and Trans from the Bantustans, Ciskei and Transkei

"But then the men will sexually harass the women!"

This sort of All Men Are Perverts attitude is very strong and hard to shake off. Many people genuinely believe in this, and perpetuate the idea through words ("Young girl, don't go out to the streets at night, lest you get raped by horny men!") and the media ("Oh no, our poor Damsel in Distress is surrounded and being 'approached' by scary men!").

I think we recently went through a discussion of gender (de)segregation in washrooms, especially in relation to trans people.

edited 5th May '16 7:10:13 AM by hellomoto

X3 I agree, my point is simply that it's silly to assume that a cis person couldn't possibly understand issues of having your gender identity questioned, or that cis people never have their gender identity questioned.

"And the Bunny nails it!" ~ Gabrael "If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we." ~ Cyran

I've actually stopped using the word Straight in that way, because it's somewhat offensive by implication. It was noted at a diversity course I did for my work, that the opposite of "straight" is "bent".

Now this may just be a British English thing, but the word "bent" here is derogatory slang for a corrupt person (particularly a policeman, which is the main use of the term today) and for a homosexual - in both cases, it could be considered a synonym for "deviancy". There's also the phrase "on the strait and narrow" which has religious origins but still carries the unfortunate implications of the word "strait" and its opposite.

So to refer to heterosexuals as "straight" strikes me as implying that non-heterosexuals are not straight - could be innocent, could be not.

As such, in much the same way as I, a cishet male, do not refer to something unusual or abnormal as "queer", so as to avoid suggesting that trans* people are abnormal or unusual, so I don't use the word straight to refer to heterosexuals.

Of course, "bent" is British slang in such ways, so in American English I appreciate that neither it nor "straight" may carry such connotations. It's also considered highly offensive today to refer to a non-het as "bent".

Sounds like a case of Did Not Do the Bloody Research or Separated by a Common Language!

I've only heard 'bent' used in "they're bent on taking revenge", never as an adjective. I've also never heard the phrase "on the straight and narrow".

I did get puzzled by the word "queer" to refer to people across the LGBT spectrum. Well, until I looked up The Other Wiki, which says "queer" is an Appropriated Appellation. Heck, the first Real Life example of Appropriated Appellation mentions "queer".

edited 5th May '16 8:01:15 AM by hellomoto

"I learned the difference between Cis and Trans from the Bantustans, Ciskei and Transkei "

And I from chemistry. I really don't get the animosity towards it. It's like calling one hand the "left" one but refusing to call your other the "right" one, because you dislike labels.

Or trying to call your bisexual character "unique" or "does not like labels".

Well, only about ten percent of people are left handed. Therefore, right handed-ness must be normal and lefties are unholy abominations/unrepentant criminals/mentally ill and in need of special "therapy" to cure them of their unnatural inclination.

I sound like I'm joking, but once upon a time this was an accepted belief. I guess ambidextrous people were the equivalent of the Depraved Bisexual.

Yep. I've met people who were born left handed...but then their parents "cured" them by tying their left hand behind their back. Welcome to real life.

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)